


The Art of Nakhra

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk





	The Art of Nakhra

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toujours_nigel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/gifts).



**1.**

‘You raise your hand to your forehead. Don’t lower your head to your hand.’

Saaeda is showing Tasneem how to do a professional aadaab. It looks so simple when she does it. Tasneem’s looks more like she’s cupping her hand for water. 

‘It is like that,’ Saaeda says when Tasneem mentions it. ‘Well, sort of. Zara sa farkh hai.’ _It’s a little different_.

 _We’re a little different_ , Tasneem thinks. It’s an understatement of epically comic proportions. Saeeda, polished, worldly-wise, breathtakingly exquisite at the art of seduction. And Tasneem, forbidden from her world, terrible at proclaiming love, even for real.

‘It isn’t _love_ , you foolish child,’ Saeeda would say if she could hear Tasneem’s thoughts. ‘It’s the antithesis of love. The place where you learn that opposites aren’t so different from each other after all.’

 

—

 

‘Don’t lower your head.’ Tone admonitory, Saaeda demonstrates the perfect way to look up at one’s lover through one’s eyelashes. She’s being indulgent, playful, showing Tasneem gestures that her little sister will never use: not commercially, at least.

Her own attempt, Tasneem thinks, looks more as though she’s trying to blink sawdust out of her eyes. 

‘Don’t feel too bad,’ Saeeda says, pitiless. ‘Generations of young women have been buried in anonymity in seedy havelis. Be thankful you weren’t given a name like Gulbadan and shipped off to Jhumri Talaiyya.’ 

 

—

 

During Brahmpur’s hottest nights, Saeeda sleeps with her luxurious hair soaked in a large basin of fragrant water. Tasneem trails her fingers through it, unable to tell where the water ends and her sister’s hair begins. 

 

—

 

Sometimes Saeeda seems to forget that they’re just playing. Despite her assumed arrogance, there’s fear inside her, flowing through veins visible under translucent skin. 

‘It’s just a game,’ Tasneem reminds her. 

'I want you to be bad at this,’ Saaeda says, soft. ‘Don’t you see?’

 

**2.**

 

On the nights Maan stays over, he hums in his sleep. 

He smells of Saaeda’s perfume, sometimes. The fragrance chases Firoz into himself, makes him recoil from reality into hidden places, crevices he never knew he possessed.

 

—

 

‘You’re way too serious for your own good,’ Maan laughs, head thrown back, the column of his throat exposed as though for a lover. 

He rolls his head on the sofa rest, glancing at Firoz. ‘What’s in that book that’s more interesting than me?’ he asks, faux-complaining, as though he were a courtesan and Firoz his object of interest.

‘You’re ridiculous,’ Firoz says, flushing deeply.

‘Ah, he blushes! My work here is clearly done.’ Maan claps a dramatic hand to his chest, laughing and rolling aside as Firoz throws a cushion at him. 

‘Aren’t you ever serious?’ Firoz says sourly.

‘What’s there to be serious about?’

‘Have you been living under a rock?’

Maan yawns widely, stretching his arms out above his head, fingertips reaching for the ceiling. ‘I don’t have to read the news. You’re sure to tell me all about it.’

‘The riots?’

‘From what I heard, it barely qualified as a riot. You worry too much, yaar. A place like Brahmpur? It’s never going to be on the news. It’s never going to be the place where anything epic happens. It’s a hick town with a nonexistent history, and that’s how it’s going to stay.’

‘If you say so.’

‘No need to take that tone with me. I know you think I’m a brainless moron, but—’

‘I never said that,’ Faiz says, contrite. 

‘I know why you’re worried,’ Maan says, soft.

‘Yeah? Why’s that?’

‘You think they’ll target you because you’re a Muslim.’

‘From what I heard, it was the Muslims who led the riot.’

‘Don’t deflect. You know what I mean.’

‘I wish I didn’t.’ Firoz scrubs his hands over his face, willing his tiredness away. ‘Can you imagine, Maan? If the mobs have their way, it could be illegal for you and me to…’

‘Ooh, for you and me to _what_?’ Maan says teasingly, reaching over to tug at the hem of Firoz’s kurta.

‘Badmaash,’ Firoz says, indulgent. Indeed, Maan could be the fucking _god_ of mischief, with his unruly hair and dancing eyes and transgression-ready skin that begs to be worshipped.

‘Mm-hm,’ Maan says, slipping closer to him. He toys with the buttons of Firoz’s kurta, bending his head, letting his lips trail over the tense line of Firoz’s shoulder. 

‘Relax,’ he murmurs, his pickpocket-fingers slipping inside the kurta. ‘Let me help you relax.’

‘We mustn’t,’ Firoz says, helpless. 

‘Bahut nakhre karte ho,’ Maan says, his fingers around Firoz’s wrist, gently encircling. _You fuss too much_.

 

**3.**

 

That night at Saeeda’s, the thumris are loud and jubilant, the wine flowing like proverbial honey, the atmosphere raucous and loud. Tasneem watches the two young men in the shadows of a pillar, deeply entwined. She can’t tell them apart. They give the impression of a many-limbed creature curling around itself, holding itself, fingers tangling in hair and tongues entwining.

After the odious Raja Sahib’s departure, Saeeda calls for the boys. ‘Arre, you two,’ she says. ‘Hamara bhi zara khayal karo, zalimo.’

( _As though anyone could ever forget about you_ , Tasneem thinks, the entire world swallowed up by her larger-than-life sister.)

Maan’s laughter sounds from the corridor just before he appears, dragging a dazed Firoz with him. Both their mouths are stained identically with red wine.

‘All of you are nakhrebaazes,’ Maan says, popping a peda into his mouth and throwing himself at Saeeda’s feet in a gesture of lazy arrogance, his head flung in her lap.

Tasneem watches as her older sister-mother runs bejewelled fingers through his hair, rubies glinting in the candlelight. ‘Some of us turn to nakhra for a living,’ she reminds him.

It’s good like this, Tasneem thinks. Just the four of them. They could be two sisters-in-blood and two brothers-in-love, two siblings courting two others like royalty in the old stories. 

‘Everyone’s doing nakhra these days,’ Firoz points out. ‘Look at India and Pakistan.’

‘Haan? So, tell me, which one’s the nakhrebaaz there?’ Maan rolls easily over until his head is in Firoz’s lap instead.

‘It’s open to interpretation.’ Firoz looks down at him, indulgent, fond.

‘Talk to me,’ Maan says with a sweet sigh, fingertips trailing over Firoz’s jawline. 

Tasneem tunes out their words as she focuses on their bodies instead: Saeeda, her skin diaphanous with clearly-visible grief; Firoz, thoughtful and melancholy, a sweetness around him like a cloud; and Maan, oblivious to everything but himself and the gestures with which he thinks he’ll conquer the world someday. Tasneem crosses her legs and sits more comfortably, sharing a smile with her sister over the heads of their guests.


End file.
